10 Athletes Who Released Terrible Songs

Tennis star Caroline Wozniacki released a pop song titled ‘Oxygen’ for charity that has amazed audiences with just how bad it is. The video, also, leaves much to be desired. Wozniacki is not the first athlete to set down her racket in favor of a microphone. A few athletes have had minimal success as musicians and singers, while others have struggled to hit the right note.

Here’s a look back at some who swing and missed with their vocal efforts:

DEION SANDERS

Sanders proved he could play multiple sports at once, but if there’s one thing he couldn’t do it’s sing. The music video for ‘Must be the Money’ is less a sensation and more a testament to how far Sanders let fame go to his head. It’s a wonder why he thought this song would propel his career forward. As a singer, Sanders sounds uncharacteristically uninterested.

ALLEN IVERSON

His ’40 Bars’ rap was a controversial and harsh reminder for NBA fans that Iverson was still a man of the streets in his heart. The song itself, though, was unremarkable. It only succeeded in rubbing some people the wrong way, as they questioned whether an NBA superstar belonged in the music studio. If only Iverson had spent more of his free time at practice.

CARL LEWIS

‘Break It Up’ was not so much a chance for Lewis to try a new career in music as it was a chance for him to prove how much time he spent training for his track and field meets. And an opportunity to run old video of him excelling at the long jump and other events. He clearly has a sense of humor about the whole thing (check out 1:58), but the whole idea for this video as a self-publicity stunt was a bad idea from the start.

OSCAR DE LA HOYA

With ‘Run to Me,’ De La Hoya gets back to his Mexican roots with some crooning for a lovely lady. The problem is that De La Hoya is more persuasive with his fists than with his lips. “Am I unwise to open up your eyes to love me?” isn’t a lyric that will exactly get the women to swoon. De La Hoya may have been wise to keep his singing ambition to himself.

CHRIS WEBBER

Webber isn’t exactly the NBA player you’d expect to produce an album, but he rode the wave when it was chic to show off his vocals. Not much there, critics noticed. In ‘Gangsta Gangsta (Tell Me How Ya Do It),’ Webber belts out the lyric “fetish for lettuce from﻿ the home of J-Rose and Jerome Bettis,” which gives shoutouts to other pro athletes but doesn’t do much else. If he wanted to give credit to his fellow players, there were probably better ways to express it.

JOHN DALY

Daly gave it a shot as a country singer, and ‘I Found It’ was his best shot. To his credit, he’s not so bad, but this is an industry that walks a fine line between bluesiness and clumsiness. And Daly falls into the second category despite his best efforts. The golfer made headlines over the years for his inconsistency and his temper, and singing may have been a good outlet for him to get some stuff off his chest. If only he’d kept it private.

BARRY ZITO

The former ace has kept his career afloat in recent years, but not by much. His singing echoes that same sentiment with Zito putting in the necessary notes, without much payoff. The simplicity to the music and lyrics makes it tough for any singer to impress; Zito just isn’t up to the challenge.

MANNY PACQUAIO

What is it about boxers and love ballads? Pacquaio gets his feelings out with “Sometimes When We Touch,” a song he struggles to stay on pitch with in his heavily-accented English. This tune actually sounds more like something you’d hear in a Disney movie, sung by a child looking for the strength and inspiration to forge on. Coming from a champion boxer, the message is a bit muffled.

TONY PARKER

It’s hard to tell what Parker is singing about since he does it in his native tongue of French, but what’s clear at the 0:26 mark of Premier Love’ is that this is an unexpected rap. You don’t see it coming from the point guard from the way he carries himself or from the musical introduction, but maybe that’s the point. He’s unconventional and probably taken too lightly.

BRONSON ARROYO

This wannabe rock star has done a dozen or so covers of hit ’90s songs, but his first venture to his own music was with ‘Painted in Yellow’ when he sounds like a mish-mosh of different soulful and pop singers. Arroyo does his best with his guitar in hand, but without a clear direction and genre for his music, he’s just a bit too lost. He’s been compared to a minor league Eddie Vedder, and here his rookie rawness really shows.